My name is Marcos Faria, I am co-founder of EIDEA Consulting & Psychology and in today’s article I come to present to you the science of human behavior applied to Inbound Marketing.
Being a graduate in Psychology, I studied the science of human behavior at university. If you have ever heard of Behaviorism, that is also what we are going to discuss.
The science of human behavior offers excellent analysis and intervention resources for any professional who deals with people. In the case of EIDEA, for example, we structure an organizational culture management service, exclusively based on the concepts of the science of human behavior.
You might be wondering if that also applies to marketing professionals . The answer is obviously yes.
Marketers deal with human behavior all the time. Every click, conversion, product review, and purchase is a behavior , and it’s these behaviors that matter to marketers who want to improve their results .
Therefore, it is essential that Inbound Marketing professionals also seek to expand their knowledge of human behavior and understand how to apply it to Inbound strategies.
This article is made for you if you want to improve your marketing and sales strategies, and consequently boost your results.
Read on to understand how you can do this based on the insights presented here.
I will rely especially on the main bibliographical reference of behavioral science: Science and Human Behavior, by BF Skinner, originally published in 1953 and considered the “Bible” on this subject.
The link between behavioral science and marketing
I thought it would be worth starting by talking a little about the history between marketing and behavioral science so that you understand the validity and purpose of the insights I am going to present.
If you have studied advertising or taken courses india mobile database in related fields, you have probably heard of John B. Watson. He was an American psychologist who made an important academic career in behavioral science.
However, what we are going to address here is the career he had in advertising and marketing, studies that innovated the strategies and sales campaigns of his time.
How did he manage to innovate? By reconciling behavioral science concepts with sales and advertising!
At that time, there was no such thing as Content Marketing or Inbound, obviously. Therefore, there is probably a lot of unexplored space for innovation today.
In the following TED video, Emilie Wapnick shows us that many opportunities for innovation are found in the interdisciplinarity between different areas. And there is interdisciplinarity between Behaviorism and Marketing. After this text, I hope to help you innovate even more!
Take, for example, the campaigns created by Watson. They had three basic elements related to the transformation that led to the area.
Their campaigns:
- They provoked people’s emotions;
- They gave instructions on how to use the product;
- They had short and direct testimonies.
Can you see any similarities between these three elements and the Inbound campaigns you run?
Without a doubt, the best content marketing strategies take into account customers’ emotions at the top-of-the-funnel attraction stage , do you agree?
At this stage of the customer journey , the potential consumer wants to solve a problem that is part of his or her life. Problems are accompanied by emotions such as dissatisfaction, frustration, displeasure, etc.
Therefore, your content must make it clear that your business understands the problem experienced by the customer.
This also applies to the bottom of the funnel stage, but here the idea is to bring positive emotions to the consumer and associate them with your product in order to increase the likelihood that they will choose your solution.
Conversion and purchase: probabilistic behaviors
One of the most important lessons of behavioral science for you, as a marketing specialist, is this: all behavior consists of probability.
Did you know that an Inbound professional works all the time on that probability in the sales funnel?
The sales funnel is a tool that helps increase the likelihood that the consumer will convert and purchase.
A good analysis of the digital marketing strategy continuous monitoring and troubleshooting always aims to increase the probability of obtaining better results.
An example of this is A/B testing , which is a way of evaluating which variables generate the best responses. In other words, A/B testing looks at which stimuli – for example, a landing page – generate a higher conversion rate.
Conversion can be understood as a consumer behavior – such as downloading an e-book. The idea is to increase the frequency of these behaviors, i.e. increase the likelihood that they will happen.
After generating leads , we are interested in the consumer continuing on their purchasing journey.
But what does behavioral science say keeps consumers moving forward in the sales funnel? You’ll find out below.
Triple Contingency Relationship, a golden equation
“Men act upon the world by modifying it and are, in turn, modified by the consequences of their actions.” F. Skinner.
The concept of the Sales Funnel did not always exist, but the techniques to induce consumers to buy probably originated with the first merchant. A historical example is that of John Watson himself, who increased purchase rates by provoking emotions in potential customers.
Buying and converting can be considered “target behaviors” in marketing. So, the more frequently they are done, the better the results.
Now, pay attention: we are going to enter into a slightly more technical part of the science of behavior and Behaviorism. Therefore, it is necessary for you to understand the phenomena related to the increase in the probability of behaviors.
An important concept in Behaviorism is the Triple Contingency Relationship.
This is the following “equation”:
Stimulus (context) -> Response (behavior) -> Consequence
Inbound marketing professionals have the ability to control or influence the stimulus and the consequence. And, in effect, indirectly control the customer’s behavior. That’s what interests us.
A stimulus is anything that triggers a behavior. It can be, for example, feeling thirsty, a green traffic light, an interesting title of a blog post, a call to action (CTA), etc.
The response (or behavior) is any action that was triggered by a stimulus and that produces an alteration in the environment. Thus, it can be drinking water, accelerating at the green light, opening a blog post, clicking on a CTA, etc.
The consequence is what the organism obtains through the behavior. Thus, quenching thirst, driving safely, learning something new from a blog post, getting a free e-book, etc.
Next, you will understand how you can interfere with the variables of the Triple Contingency Relationship with Inbound Marketing.
Understand how to control stimuli
One of the great benefits of Digital Marketing is the possibility of obtaining various data and statistics on the actions implemented, thus checking what generates better results.
This data is, in behavioral science terms, a reference to which stimuli are working or not working in your strategy.
Stimuli that work are, for example, those that increase the likelihood of purchasing behavior – the same thing Watson did by triggering people’s emotions.
In Inbound, the stimuli associated with results are titles of blog posts and e-books, CTA’s, email subjects, SEO (which increases the visibility of the stimuli), link building , etc.
However, note that all the stimuli I have mentioned must be consistent with the content used. For example, the blog post must deliver what it promises in the title, otherwise it becomes a stimulus that generates traffic, but decreases the likelihood that users will return to your blog.
What I mean is that the stimulus is related to the consequence. If it is not consistent with the consequence, it loses its value. And it is about the consequences that we are going to deal now.
Behavioral consequences: a key element to increase conversions
Personally, I understand that one of the pillars of content marketing is delivering value to the customer.
With content production, the goal is to deliver rich knowledge to consumers, right? And that is essential to the success of the strategies.
Of course, Google increasingly recognizes and optimizes its search engines to put sites that really deliver value with their content in the first results.
This is not happening without a reason. Google seems to understand the value of consequence in behavior. Think about it: if it were a search engine that couldn’t find truly qualified results, users would turn to other search sites to do their research. In other words, they would look for better consequences.
It is because of the positive consequences that the user returns! And the Inbound specialist must be constantly on the lookout for that.
Furthermore, when it comes to the best consequences for consumers’ solution-seeking behavior, the Inbound methodology has an advantage.
Apart from the quality of the consequence, influencing the retention of people in the customer journey, the immediate factor of value delivery is also decisive.
The faster a user gets a return on what they search for, the greater the chances of them feeling satisfied. Digital marketing provides that speed in a very beneficial way.
Let’s say you want to learn how to improve conversions in your strategy, and to do so, you search on Google about the topic. It will present you with a list of results and allow you to immediately learn solutions to your problem. Other marketing strategies that are not Inbound do not enjoy that speed.
For this reason, businesses that focus on Inbound and content production are likely to be more successful, as they present several positive consequences – such as learning and solutions – for people during the customer journey.
The role of behavioral variability in the sales funnel
Another crucial aspect for achieving success is variability of behavior . This refers to a person’s ability to vary their behavior to achieve pleasant and rewarding consequences.
Throughout the text we talk about behavioral science from the customer’s perspective, but we must also consider the perspective of the marketing professional.
The client looks for positive consequences and emits behaviors to achieve them. The same happens with the professional. He seeks to achieve conversion and purchase, and therefore he must also emit behaviors to achieve them.
How is it possible to do it?
The variability of professional behaviour is a decisive factor. This change occurs, for example, through the diversity of content.
Each customer is seduced by different variables, and the Inbound strategy must take this into account. Content must be diversified to improve the probability of success. Produce blog posts, infographics, videos, e-books, various e-mails, etc.
The greater the diversity, the greater the likelihood that you will achieve conversions and sales.
Check out the article for 58 examples to help you change your behavior .
Organizational culture and behaviors
Did you know that your company’s organizational culture influences the content marketing you develop?
Just as the language of your texts, for example, expresses what you bring from the organizational culture of your company. And that will be visible to clients.
Similarly, the way you carry yourself in your videos will reveal something about how you relate to customers. And customer relationships are another way of expressing organizational culture.
It is important that you pay special attention to this issue, as it is the culture of a company that ends up selecting the profile of the client with whom it will negotiate. This selection can be broad or restrictive, so be careful to ensure that your culture is in line with your persona . This way, you will ensure that your client is truly attracted and retained by your content.
“The major problems facing the world today can only be solved if we improve our understanding of human behavior.” F. Skinner.
To conclude this content, I invite you to perform a fundamental exercise to outline innovation through behavioral science .
Analyze your strategies based on the knowledge presented here and answer:
- Do you know what exists in the market that pleases and satisfies you?
- Are you isolating variables and testing their effectiveness?
- Are you delivering relevant content to your consumers?
- Are you varying your content production behaviors?
- Do you know Google’s behaviors?
- Do you know your organizational culture?
Knowing your own reality is essential to extrapolate the limits alb directory . Now that you know what Behavioral Science recognizes as valid and efficient in Inbound Marketing, you can go out there and use your creativity to grow and achieve more sales!
What do you think about the Behavioral Science of Inbound Marketing? Leave your thoughts in the comments!
